Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L65/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication
  • H04L65/10—Architectures or entities
  • H04L65/1016—IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L65/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication
  • H04L65/10—Architectures or entities
  • H04L65/1045—Proxies, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L65/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communication
  • H04L65/1066—Session management
  • H04L65/1101—Session protocols
  • H04L65/1104—Session initiation protocol [SIP]

Definitions

• IP Internet Protocof
• IP networks allow the dissemination of conversational data, such as "Voice over”.
• IP "(VoIP) IP "(VoIP)
• the present invention relates to the means set up to enable the initiator or the recipient of a multimedia stream to use the most appropriate network resource among those accessible to him.
• Signaling messages are messages allowing a terminal to request a connection with another terminal. , or also messages indicating that a telephone line is busy, or signaling that the called telephone is ringing, or signaling that such phone is connected to the network and can be joined in this or that way.
• the H.323 protocol has been developed by I 1 ITU-T. It specifies procedures for signaling, coder-decoder negotiation, and information transport. It is widely used by manufacturers of voice and video conferencing, as well as in several real-time Internet applications such as "NetMeeting".
• the SIP protocol has been defined by the IETF in RFC 3261. This protocol allows the establishment, modification and termination of multimedia sessions in a network using the IP protocol. The SIP protocol also allows for event notification procedures and the sending of information outside the context of a session. It is widely used for service orders of instant messaging. Thus, in a SIP environment, there are different types of communications such as session establishment requests and queries exchanged outside any dialog. In the devices obeying this protocol, the associated functions are implemented by a logical entity called "User Agent” (meaning "user agent” in English), which behaves, according to the circumstances, as a "client” or as a "server”.
• User Agent meaning "user agent” in English
• the invention is particularly suitable for infrastructure type IMS ("IP Multimedia Subsystem").
• UIMS has been defined by 3GPP ("3rd Generation Partnership Project") and TISPAN ("Telecommunications and Internet Converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networking"), a network architecture introduced by 3GPP for mobile networks.
• the architecture which uses SIP protocol, enables the dynamic establishment and control of multimedia sessions between two clients as well as the reservation of resources at the level of the network for transporting multimedia streams.
• This architecture network operators can conveniently implement a management policy, providing a predetermined service quality, and calculate how much to charge customers.
• the 1 IMS currently provides access to such services telephony, video telephony, presence and instant messaging, which she also manages the interaction.
• a customer registered on a network such as those described above wishes to benefit from a multimedia service offered by the network, it sends to the network, or receives from the network, a signaling message. But customers sometimes have the opportunity to use different resources for the transport of a given multimedia stream.
• the network resources concerned by the present invention are physical or virtual networks.
• a "physical network” is a set of electromechanical characteristics intended for the transport of data in the form of "bits" (layer 1 of the OSI model).
• a client may have multiple physical interfaces (for example, optical fibers, pairs of copper wires, or radio interfaces).
• a “virtual network” is built on the basis of a physical network and includes connected communications operating in packet mode.
• a virtual network provides specific characteristics, such as Quality of Service (eg, throughput, latency, or jitter), security (for example, encryption or authentication), or routing (for example, a VPN; are the initials of the words "Virtual Private Network! meaning a virtual network on a layer 2, 3 or 4 (or intermediate) of the OSI model, when different virtual networks are declared on a virtual network. same physical network, they are distinguished by identifiers specific to the corresponding OSI layer.
• the virtual network is identified by a VCI
• the LLP service Permanent Logic Lines
• VLAN initials of the words "Virtual Local Area Network! meaning “virtual local area network”
• a label is added dedicated to the data packet headers (layer 2 or layer 3 of the OSI model), or
• IPSec which secures IP traffic by authentication and / or encryption of data packets (layer 3 of the OSI model).
• the client device to which such resources are accessible may for example be a fixed or mobile terminal, or a residential gateway or a residential gateway, or a network operator gateway ("Voice Gateway”).
• DSLAM-SIP DSLAM-SIP
• DSLAM-SIP DSLAM-SIP
• a VoIP call could borrow a priority resource.
• a client database could be defined as a particular category of clients called "secret services", which would include all agents of a counter-intelligence department. Secure communication channels could then be allocated for calls made or received by this type of subscriber.
• Another example would be to select the resource according to the nature (audio, video, image, and so on) and the technical characteristics (bit rate, and so on) of the multimedia stream concerned.
• the present invention thus relates, in a first aspect, to a method of selecting a network resource, in which a "controlled" device connected to an IP network can also access at least one other physical telecommunications network and / or virtual, comprising a step in which a request is sent or relayed by said controlled or to said controlled. Said method is remarkable in that the controller then receives a session control signal containing a resource identifier representative of the physical or virtual network that the controller can or must use to satisfy said request.
• request is meant here any request for establishment of a multimedia session such as a telephone call, or request for computer method or service request.
• the entity initiating a request will be called the "requestor”
• the destination entity of a request will be called “the called party”.
• the network required to satisfy said request may be said IP (physical) network itself.
• control may if necessary be allowed to select another type of network resource than the type associated with the received resource identifier.
• a characteristic can in particular be advantageous when the controller finds that it is impossible for him to select a network resource conforming to the received resource identifier; in this case, according to particular characteristics, the controller may advantageously select another network resource among those available to him.
• said controller transmits, to the IP network, a session control signal containing information according to which the controller has the means necessary to interpret the resource identifiers in terms of physical or virtual networks.
• These provisions may for example be implemented at each initial registration of a client in the IP network.
• the invention also relates, according to a second aspect, to a method of selecting a network resource, comprising a step of interception, in an IP network, by a device called “controller”, of a request transmitted or relayed by a device said "controlled” or to a device called “controlled”. Said method is remarkable in that said controller then sends to the control a session control signal containing a resource identifier representative of a physical or virtual network that the control can or must use to satisfy said request.
• the controller then receives from said controller a resource identifier representative of the network resource that the controller has actually selected, and
• the controller uses this information to determine whether said request must be satisfied or rejected.
• the invention relates to various devices.
• a so-called "controlled” device connected to an IP network and also able to access at least one other physical and / or virtual telecommunications network, comprising means for, following the transmission or relaying a request by said controlled or to said controlled, receive a session control signal following said request.
• Said device is remarkable in that it further comprises means for interpreting a resource identifier contained in said control signal of session and representative of the physical or virtual network that the controlled party can or must use to satisfy said request.
• said controlled device comprises means for selecting another network resource if it finds that it is impossible for it to select a network resource compliant with said received resource identifier.
• said controlled device comprises means for subsequently transmitting, to the IP network, a session control signal containing a resource identifier representative of the network resource that the controlled device has actually selected.
• said controlled device comprises means for transmitting, to the IP network, a session control signal containing information according to which the controller has the means necessary to interpret the resource identifiers in terms of networks. physical or virtual.
• the invention also relates, according to a fourth aspect, to a so-called “controller” device located in an IP network, comprising means for intercepting a request sent or relayed by a device called “controlled” or to a device called “controlled” ".
• Said device is remarkable in that it further comprises means for then sending to said controlled a session control signal containing a resource identifier representative of a physical or virtual network that the controlled can or must use to satisfy said request.
• said controller device further comprises means for determining whether said request is to be satisfied or rejected, on the basis of a session control signal received from said controller and containing a resource identifier representative of the network resource actually selected by the controlled.
• said controller device further comprises means for taking into account the information according to which the controller has the means necessary to interpret the resource identifiers in terms of physical or virtual networks.
• the invention also relates to a computer program downloadable from a communication network and / or stored on a computer readable medium and / or executable by a microprocessor.
• This computer program is notable in that it includes instructions for performing the steps of any of the methods of selecting a network resource succinctly set forth above, when executed on a computer.
• FIG. 1 schematically represents a system for providing multimedia services capable of implementing the invention
• FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the resource selection according to one embodiment of the invention.
• the system illustrated in Figure 1 is based on an IMS type network architecture, as briefly presented above.
• the Multimedia services offered by such a system may include telephony services, video telephony, content sharing ("content-sharing" in English), presence, instant messaging, or television. These services are available to the user of an UE terminal (for "User Equipment” in English) on a network 20 comprising an IP transport infrastructure and servers through which the terminal 10 can exchange multimedia streams and session control signals compliant with the SIP protocol, in particular with another UE terminal 1 1, the terminals 10 and 11 having previously registered with the IMS servers of the network 20.
• the terminal 10, 11 is a fixed or mobile terminal, or a home or enterprise gateway, having SIP signaling means and may include means for restitution of audiovisual content.
• this multimedia service delivery system relies on a network that complies with the IMS architecture defined in 3GPP, and which comprises:
• I / S-CSCF call servers for the combination of an "Interrogating-Call Server Control Function" and a "Serving-Call Server Control Function” function in the same server
• an I / S-CSCF call server 22 in particular manages the procedure for registering the devices connected to the network 20; in fact, for such a device to benefit from the services provided by this network, this device must, with some exceptions (in the case of certain emergency calls) register with the I / S-CSCF server.
• the I / S-CSCF server 22 also manages the routing of the signaling between the terminal 10 and the voice messaging servers VM 25, PS 26 presence and TAS telephony servers 27, as well as the routing towards other terminals managed by the same IMS network (as for example the terminal 11) and the routing of the signaling between this IMS network 20 and other networks (not shown);
• the P-CSCF server 21 is the SIP contact point of the terminal 10 (respectively, 11) in the IMS network; thus, all SIP signaling exchanged between the terminal 10 (respectively, 1 1) and the I / S-CSCF call server 22 passes through this server P-CSCF 21 (respectively, 28);
• an HSS server 24 contains the profile of the user of the terminal 10 in terms of authentication data, location and subscribed services;
• a server of type SLF for "Subscriber Location Function”
• SLF server 23 is used in networks containing several HSS servers; this SLF server 23 is interrogated by the functions I-CSCF and S-CSCF to find the address of the HSS server 24 hosting the data of the user of the terminal 10;
• the server VM 25 manages the subscription of the terminal 10 to the events of posting / viewing of the messages of the user of this terminal, and notifies the terminal 10 during the occurrence of these events;
• the server PS 26 manages the subscription of the terminal 10 to the presence events that the user of this terminal wishes to monitor, and notifies the terminal at the occurrence of these events;
• TAS 27 telephony server manages the telephone services to which the user of the terminal 10 has subscribed with his operator, such as the presentation of the number or call forwarding.
• the VM 25 voicemail servers, the PS presence servers 26 and the TAS telephony servers 27 are examples of so-called “application servers” (AS).
• the database server HSS 24 is notably interrogated:
• I-CSCF when registering the terminal 10 in order to allocate an I / S-CSCF server 22 to the user of this terminal or to find the I / S-CSCF server 22 already allocated to this user ;
• controller is an entity that indicates to the "controlled” entity the preferential or exclusive choice of a resource (physical and / or virtual network, such as as defined above) of the transport plan.
• control role may be played in particular by the terminal 10 or the terminal 11, or by a gateway (not shown) of a network operator, and
• the role of the controller can notably be played by an S-CSCF or I / S-CSCF server 22 and / or by one of the application servers 25, 26 and 27.
• terminal 10 in the role of the requesting controller the terminal 11 in the role of the requested controller, and the I / S-CSCF server 22 in the role of the controller for these two terminals will be considered below. 10 and 11.
• a resource identifier is defined, which is in the form of any alphanumeric string. This identifier is preferably inserted in certain signaling messages exchanged by the controller and controlled entities. It is thus possible to select a type of resource call by call, method by method or service by service according to criteria specific to the controller.
• the concrete identification of the resource (such as physical network, or virtual network) must be carried out by the controller receiving the resource identifier according to the invention, and must not be the responsibility of the controller. controller, who must simply recognize that there is need for a particular use without worrying about the actual implementation (which may change over time). This ensures the independence of the control plan vis-à-vis the transport plan (and more generally the ISO model of independence between layers).
• the resource identifier exchanged between the controller and the controller is therefore purely logical.
• the distinction between "resource identifier" according to the invention and concrete identification of the resource allows the controller to remain transparent to changes and modifications made in the transport plan. As shown in Figure 2, the configuration system
• OS operation in FIG. 2 a configuration system managed by the network operator declares to the controller the resource identifier associated respectively with each of the services or uses offered to the customers, following what the controller is configured accordingly, and
• said configuration system declares to the controller the resource identifier associated respectively with each of the resources accessible to the controlled (offered or subscribed by him), following which the controlled is configured accordingly.
• the exchanges between controllers and controllers for the selections of resources take the form of SIP signals.
• the resource identifier according to the invention can then be conveniently included as a label in a new header (referred to as "Resource-control" in the examples below), which will be inserted in different methods.
• This header according to the invention may thus notably (but not exclusively) be inserted in the methods INVITE, UPDATE, re-INVITE and INFO, as well as in the responses 1 XX or 2XX.
• the controller 22 does not wait for a return confirmation from the controller 10.
• MESSAGE 1, Controlled > Controller:
• INVITE sip [email protected] SIP / 2.0
• the controller 22 has recognized in the request from the terminal 10 a request for an urgent VoIP call, and recommends the selection of a network resource identified by the resource identifier "high_priority", while indicating that it is useless to answer him ("no-answer" label).
• a controller may transmit a session control signal to a called user to recommend to the called user the selection of the network resource identified in said request by a certain resource identifier. It should be noted that such a message will be useful in the event that the called party has access to a plurality of network resources, regardless of the applicant's situation, ie the applicant has access to a plurality of resources, or to a single resource (in which case it is obviously unnecessary to recommend to the requesting a particular type of network resource).
• the called party could for example be the terminal 11 (which is, it is recalled, also controlled by the controller 22).
• this message can take the following form:
• INVITE sip [email protected] SIP / 2.0
• the controller recommends to the control 11 the selection of a network resource identified by the resource identifier "high_priority", all indicating in this message 2 ' that the controlled 1 1 is not required to answer him ("no-answer" label).
• a controlled it will not always be possible for a controlled to access a resource of the type indicated by its controller. For example, if the resource identifier corresponds to an ADSL line, the controller may find that this ADSL line is unavailable (this occurs especially when an ADSL line is not synchronized); another example is the situation where a configuration has been updated in the backbone but not yet at the client level, so that the managed is unable to interpret the resource identifier provided by his controller.
• the controller 22 does not have the means to check whether the multimedia stream established by the control 10 uses or not the resource recommended by the controller 22.
• the controller 10 after having received a resource identifier from the controller 22, is required to indicate in response to the latter the identifier of the type of resource actually selected by the controller 10.
• the latter may advantageously use a header similar to that used by the controller 22 in the resource indication message, that is to say include an identifier of resource identical to that provided by the controller, assuming the type of resource requested was available and was selected. If the indicated resource type was no longer available, the resource ID inserted into the response will be different.
• INVITE stp urnes bond (secret services SIP / 2 0
• PRACK sip james bond @ secret services.com SIP / 2.0
• the controller 22 has recognized that the recipient of the call (“james_bond”) belongs to the category of clients called “services_secrets”. It therefore commands the control 10 to select a resource identified by the resource identifier "top_secret”.
• the controller 22 requests the controller 10 an explicit confirmation; to do this, it uses a conventional label “confirm” in the header “Resource-control” according to the invention (message 2), or a new label ("opt ⁇ on-tag” in English) "resource-control” , designating the means of implementation of the present invention, in the conventional header "Require” (message 2bis).
• the controller 10 confirms that it was able to select the resource associated with the resource identifier "Top_secret".
• This resource can for example be a secure and encrypted IP-SEC tunnel, set up in a specific VLAN.
• the controller 22 can then optionally transmit a session control signal to the called party, in order to recommend to him to select the network resource identified by the resource identifier "top_secret", in case the called party would have access to a plurality of network resources.
• An advantage of this second embodiment is that it allows the controller 22 to refuse the establishment of the multimedia stream if it considers that the type of resource actually selected by the control 10 is inadequate. In the example above, the controller 22 could have refused the VoIP call if the caller 10, in his message 3 or 3bis, had proposed to place this call on an insecure network.
• a request issued by a controller 10 includes an explicit mention to this effect. Using the example above, it will suffice to replace, in message 1, the header
• tag including the tag (option-tag) "resource-control" according to the invention.
• a controller 22 requests (at any time) confirmation for this purpose from a controller 10, using a OPTIONS method according to RFC 3261.
• OPTIONS method according to RFC 3261.
• controller 22 When the controller 22 receives the above response, it knows, because of the "resource-control" tag (option-tag) according to the invention included in the conventional "Supported" header, that the control 10 is equipped with the means required to implement the invention.
• the controller 22 receives a response that does not include a "Supported” header or includes a “Supported” header in which the "resource-control" tag does not appear, then the controller 22 is not able to know if this client is able to implement the invention, ie if this client can be controlled as to the selection network resource. How the requests of such a customer will be processed will then depend on the policy put in place by the operator of the network 20.
• the implementation of the invention within the nodes of the telecommunications network can be realized by means of software and / or hardware components.
• the software components can be integrated into a typical network node management computer program. Therefore, as indicated above, the present invention also relates to a computer system.
• This computer system conventionally comprises a central processing unit controlling signals by a memory, as well as an input unit and an output unit.
• this computer system can be used to execute a computer program comprising instructions for implementing the method of selecting a network resource according to the invention.
• the invention also relates to a downloadable computer program from a communication network comprising instructions for executing the steps of a method of selecting a network resource according to the invention, when it is executed on a computer.
• This computer program may be stored on a computer readable medium and may be executable by a microprocessor.
• This program can use any programming language, and be in the form of source code, object code, or intermediate code between source code and object code, such as in a partially compiled form, or in any another desirable form.
• the invention also relates to a computer-readable information medium, comprising instructions of a computer program as mentioned above.
• the information carrier may be any entity or device capable of storing the program.
• the medium may comprise storage means, such as a ROM, for example a CD ROM or a microelectronic circuit ROM, or a magnetic recording means, for example a floppy disk ("floppy dise" in English). ) or a hard disk.
• the information medium may be a transmissible medium such as an electrical or optical signal, which may be conveyed via an electrical or optical cable, by radio or by other means.
• the computer program according to the invention can in particular be downloaded to an Internet type network.
• the information carrier may be an integrated circuit in which the program is incorporated, the circuit being adapted to execute or to be used in the execution of the selection method of a network resource according to the invention.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
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• Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
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• 2010
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